Brian Kelly if he were offered Florida State job: Leading that program would be an honor

Brian Kelly might have his eye on the Florida State opening should they give him a call. It wasn’t without a few jokes thrown in as well, but Kelly considered the Seminoles job a good opportunity for whoever ends up getting the gig. Florida State fired Mike Norvell after this weekend’s slate, ending his tenure that peaked in 2023 with an ACC title but narrowly missing the College Football Playoff. It was downhill after that. Whether or not Kelly is putting his name into the hat remains to be seen, but it seems like he’s fond of Florida State. $19.99 gets you a FULL year of On3 | Rivals national coverage “Yeah, I mean, look, when you’re talking to an unemployed football coach, every job’s a great job, you know? But Florida State, look, I’ve got a great history with Florida State, great games,” Kelly said on College Sports Radio on Sirius XM. “I know what that’s like, the history and tradition of Florida State, playing in that state, and the fan base. “So anytime you have an incredibly brand driven, great tradition and history, there’s a want and desire to be part of somebody that has had that success and, certainly, leading that program, from anyone’s perspective, would be an honor and privilege.” Could Brian Kelly coach Florida State? Some, like ESPN’s Paul Finebaum, don’t consider Florida State a top of the line job anymore. But Kelly isn’t of that thought and considers that brand and logo among the more powerful in college athletics. “Well, there’s still brand recognition. There’s no doubt about that,” Kelly said. “I don’t think that’s changed. I mean, certainly that is recognizable to anybody that’s involved in any form of athletics. The factors that we have to deal with today is the Indiana factor. And when you can take Indiana that, if we had this conversation a few years ago, we’d say, ‘Well, they have no brand recognition as it relates to football and they can’t win there.’ But yet they won the national championship. So when people talk relative to, ‘It’s not what it used to be,’ nothing’s what it used to be! Everything has changed. “And so that’s why you have to make a decision like Florida State did, because you can’t afford to wait anymore because there’s just so much competition out there across the board from Indiana to Maryland to any of the schools that have not had necessarily the kind of past success that a Florida State did. Everybody’s in the big game now. And in the big game, they don’t care what your resume looks like. They care what you’ve done now. Or you become Radio Shack. You don’t evolve, you don’t change, you don’t look at how we can be more nimble and more unique with our roster. And those brands will get left behind if they’re not ready to make those kinds of changes.”